A souped-up version of the tetanus-diphtheria vaccine appears to be safe for use in the elderly, a new study by Oxford Journals’ Clinical Infectious Diseases has found.

Researchers gave tetanus-diptheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) shots to more than 119,000 seniors from 2006 until 2010; the same amount got the traditional Td vaccines. There was a slight uptick in seniors who showed “inflammatory or allergic events” a few days after the Tdap shots, but otherwise, all systems appeared go, researchers said.

It suggests that immunizing seniors against pertussis and tetanus-diphtheria “should not have untoward safety consequences,” the researchers concluded. Their findings were reported by MedPage Today.

In other news: The Great, Gray Lady takes up the hospice-v.-nursing home conundrum (that seems a familiar theme); Arizona hospitals are “scrambling” to fix their readmissions problems; Romney’s guys say that The People weren’t all that Mediscared; Forbes’ Avik Roy calls a foul on Obama’s privatization plan for dual eligibles.